James Riley (October 27, 1777 – March 13, 1840) was the captain of the United States merchant ship Commerce.[1]
Early life
James Riley was born in Middletown, Connecticut on October 27, 1777.[2] At age 15, he began serving as a cabin boy on a trading vessel in the West Indies. By age 20 he had become a ship captain.[3]
He married Phebe Miller in January 1802, and they had five children.[3]
Riley led his crew through the Sahara Desert, after they were shipwrecked off the coast of contemporary Western Sahara in August 1815, and wrote a memoir about their ordeal. This true story describes how they came to be shipwrecked and their travails in the Sahara. The book, published in 1817 and originally titled Authentic Narrative of the Loss of the American Brig 'Commerce' by the 'Late Master and Supercargo' James Riley, is modernly republished as Sufferings in Africa.[4]
Lost in this unknown world, Captain Riley felt responsible for his crew and their safety. He told of the events leading to their capture by marauding Sahrawi natives who kept them as slaves. Horribly mistreated, they were beaten, sun-burnt, starved, and forced to drink their own and camel urine. A slave would be worked until close to death and then either traded or killed.[citation needed]
Riley eventually persuaded another Arab, Sidi Hamet, to purchase him and his shipmates and take them to a port city far to the north, where Riley hoped to gain their freedom. He told Hamet falsely that he had a friend in the city who would reward Hamet for their release. Upon their arrival, Riley wrote a note to the local British consul, who then presented himself as Riley's long lost friend and secured the enslaved Americans' release.
Aftermath
Once back on American shores, Riley devoted himself to anti-slavery work but eventually returned to a life at sea.
He died March 13, 1840, on his vessel the Brig William Tell which he was sailing from New York to "St. Thomas in the Caribbean"[a][5] "of disease caused by unparalleled suffering more than twenty years previous during his shipwreck and captivity on the desert of Sahara".[3][6] The lives of his crew were foreshortened, no doubt, from complications caused by their hardships in the African desert. The last surviving crewman was the cabin boy, who lived to be 82.[citation needed]
In 1851, eleven years after Riley's death at sea, the publishing firm of G. Brewster issued the book Sequel to Riley's Narrative: Being a Sketch of Interesting Incidents in the Life, Voyages and Travels of Capt. James Riley[...].[7]
Abraham Lincoln, who later became president of the United States, listed Sufferings in Africa as one of the three most influential works that shaped his political ideology, particularly his views on slavery. The others were the Bible and The Pilgrim's Progress (1678).[9]
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